Margarida Constantino & Charlotte Gillain
Jaarlijks nodigt Theater a/d Rijn enkele opkomende theater- en dansmakers uit voor een residentie in ons huis. In deze periode kunnen de makers onderzoeken, experimenteren en uitproberen onder begeleiding van het Theater a/d Rijn team. Van 2 tot en met 13 december waren makers Margarida Constantino en Charlotte Gillain te gast. Lees hieronder hoe zij hun residenties hebben ervaren in een reeks interviews met onze huisdramaturg Eylül.
Interview: Dag 1 van de residentie
De residenties van Theater a/d Rijn brengen jonge makers samen voor artistieke verkenning en uitwisseling. Deze keer hebben we Charlotte Gillain, mimespeler en resident van ons Arnhems Stadsatelier, en Margarida Constantino, een spannende choreograaf. Samen checken we in op de eerste dag van hun residentie. Lees mee!
Eylül Fidan Akıncı [EFA]: How are you two doing in this first afternoon of your residencies?
Margarida Constantino [MC]: I’m good—confused, overwhelmed!
Charlotte Gillain [CG]: What are you overwhelmed by?
MC: My research! I want something aesthetically surprising, but my questions feel predictable. I’m working with a simple being trying to learn how to walk, but it looks like a baby learning, not abject. We’re experimenting to create abjection, but how honest is it to force it? Would it be “abjection” defined by the male gaze?
EFA: Sounds like you’ve already dived in.
MC: Fully.
EFA: And you, Charlotte?
CG: We’ve been setting up cables and beamers all day. The beamers are too small for my visuals, but Ayton and Guus [tech team] are helping with amazing solutions. I’ll probably have less space to move, but the visuals are key, so it’s a good compromise. I can’t wait to nerd out tomorrow when I’m finally alone.
EFA: You’re in very different stages of your process. What brought you both to Arnhem and Theater a/d Rijn for these research projects?
CG: Arnhem is special for me as the first place I lived away from home [Antwerp]. My research is an archaeology of memory, so Arnhem is a deep layer. As a theater space, Theater a/d Rijn offers intimacy with advanced tools for experimentation, which is perfect for me.
MC: As an ArtEZ student, I saw many shows here, I was artistically saturated by Arnhem. After moving to Amsterdam, I saw Try Not to Know What You Know by Merel Severs, a Theater a/d Rijn maker. It aligned with everything I wanted as an artist and brought me back here for my next steps.
EFA: Did you meet as students in Arnhem? Both your projects explore psychology and physical performance—was that a connection?
MC: I actually first saw Charlotte in The Other Everything [by Gerbent Vaillant] in 2022. She had this incredibly calm yet unstable energy. Later, we were introduced through friends and found shared ideas.
EFA: And now you’re here together. What are you curious about in each other’s projects?
CG: I’m eager to see what Margarida’s concept about abjection and hysteria will look like in the end. You seem to already have some score, so I’m curious how it’s going to change throughout the residency. I’m always intrigued when women tackle gory themes. How do you direct your performer—what boundaries do you set or break?
MC: I start with research questions but leave space for natural responses. I keep certain details from Rebecca, my performer, to explore her instincts. She’s experienced and free to refuse or take a different direction. To explore abjection, we start with its opposite—a clean, safe image—because it turns out the naked body alone is not enough to provide that!
Charlotte, your project deals with the memory of places through movement. I’m curious how you connect these memories dramaturgically. Are you working with separate moments or creating a story? And why do you need movement for it?
CG: I need movement because a simple video shoot of these places isn’t compelling; I want to convey the internal world of me remembering places with my motion in the present. During some EMDR sessions I underwent [a therapeutic tool of memory recall by induced eye movement], I discovered how walking forward imprints impressions on memory. Striking events may fade, but the ordinary act of walking stays vivid—like commuting to school.
Dramaturgically, some locations follow the order I remember them. But I also start from the theater building and look into the route the audience takes to get here, from outside the ArtEZ, from the street I once lived, from locations I had spent time. We will craft a sped-up sequence where different locations overlap. We’ll see if it works this week!
Benieuwd hoe het Charlotte en Margarida zal vergaan? Blijf op de hoogte voor het gesprek van volgende week!
Week 1 van de residentie
Na hun eerste week vertellen Charlotte en Margarida hoe het ging met hun voorstellingen, ook stellen ze elkaar de vraag over het proces en alle verassingen die dit met zich meebracht.
Charlotte Gillain [CG]: What did you discover last week? Any surprises, and how did you handle them?
Margarida Constantino [MC]: I discovered that my performer is way better than I expected, which was great. I realized that if this piece were performed in different places, it would need to be with her. I’m still figuring out what’s abject and what’s not. When we create images of abjection, they set a baseline. The abject becomes normal. So, how do we reawaken the abjection now?
CG: You raised the norm in your world, so it’s harder to counterpoint.
MC: What did you discover?
CG: Most of this week was about motion capture and tech. The suit tracks my joint movements, which translate to a human avatar. If I walk well, ideally, it meshes completely with the environment. The camera moves where I look, but arm movements don’t matter much, for example.
A writer friend came to contribute on Friday. I want to include some text to explore building a tangible inner world. Specific details create a sense of time and place. Now I’m working on layering these elements so they talk to each other.
How is it working with live music?
MC: Comfortable. I always prefer it. Live music feels less pretentious and supports the scene. Unless it’s ironic, I don’t like recorded tracks. With pre-made tracks, I feel like I’m serving the music, choreographing movement to fit. But this piece needs emotion leading to motion. Live music might seem self important, but it creates a curious, cinematographic darkness that I love.
CG: When you talk about dance versus movement—how are you directing your performer? Are you choreographing movements precisely, or are you working with a score of actions?
MC: At first, I gave her a score. For example, imagine you have no personality, no identity. You’re just a blob of a person, cold and scared. Start from there. Feel what that’s like in your body and try to stand up without knowing what hands and feet are for. She improvises, and I give feedback on what works. Eventually, we set everything, but we keep searching for abject sensations.
I want it to look like dance at some point. So we find out what is dance in this context. How does dance blend into this physicality? Sometimes, it doesn’t work, and we push further. For example, “She wouldn’t have the coordination for this because she just learned to walk.” We explore less instinctive movements, like not knowing if feet or head should move first in space.
CG: So, you build the frame by adding layers, but when shaping an image, you extract, deconstructing until the two merge?
MC: Yes. And what about you, are you setting movement?
CG: I plan to start tomorrow. Much of the research was balancing the visual and acoustic layers needed to create the world. I’m excited to finally start moving. I’ve had an explosive dancing scene, but it didn’t work. It’s more about subtleties—gestures, breath, or facial expressions that bring the walking to life rather than marching.
MC: When you move, what’s in your field of vision? Do you see the audience or pretend they’re there?
CG: I have a literal fourth wall and mostly look straight ahead unless the visuals move. I can’t see anyone, but I imagine sending energy from my navel to amplify my bodily presence. Or when walking backward, I imagine pulling the audience with me. This helps me connect, even without seeing them.
Het eind van de residentie
Reflecteren, aanpassen, realisaties over elkaars werk en de volgende stappen die Charlotte en Margarida zullen maken.
Eylül Fidan Akinci [EFA]: Knowing what you know now, how would you define your projects?
Charlotte Gillain [CG]: Walking and talking about life through small details that reveal bigger truths. Walking has this simple act of moving forward, which mirrors how we reflect and generate memories. It’s exciting to combine that simplicity with the technical complexity of replicating these places. By the end, I thought, “I want to say everything about being human.”
This personal archive feels mundane yet grand. Visually capturing moments and creating digital portraits felt like building a shell for a world. I’m still in love with walking through these fragments—balancing the big and small, bridging my subconscious with others’. Someone told me after the presentation that they felt melancholic for someone else’s memories, as if they were their own. That struck me deeply.
Margarida Constantino [MC]: I wanted to uncover what angers me in the history of womankind. Through choreography, I explore the history and physical experience of hysteria. In essence, it’s a human lab rat experiment—an emotional journey examining how the definitions of having a female body evolved. It uses abject imagery as a liberating tool.
EFA: What are the biggest takeaways from these two weeks?
CG: Juggling different workflows simultaneously was a challenge. I created a complex process combining technical and physical elements. My biggest takeaway is learning to prioritize. Technically, you need playfulness; performatively, you can’t work intuitively for days without addressing technicalities. Seeking that balance between working intuitively and being calculated can be frustrating but also freeing.
I also rediscovered text. A year ago, it was just a way of capturing temporary things for later recall. The power of talking while walking surprised me. Text’s directness appealed to me, alongside mastering the physicality of walking on a pad in darkness. From the outside, it looks simple; from the inside, it’s about balancing. These internal processes, though visually uninteresting, are crucial.
MC: Working with horror and abjection revealed the limits of what the human body can endure in live performance. There’s a point where emotional or physical strain becomes irreversible. That got me rethinking my approach. Without prosthetics or artificial materials, how can I escalate tension purely through movement and psychology?
EFA: What’s next for your projects?
MC: I want to expand this into something longer, answering more of my questions. How can movement distort the body and amplify storytelling? The performance must escalate relentlessly, breaking hearts while balancing hope and despair. A hero moment, revenge, or a reversal could shift dynamics—but total destruction remains the core.
I’m also curious about shifting focus to the other characters. What if they become the monsters? That plot twist could turn the lab case into the most human and relatable figure. This duality resonates with audiences; in our aftertalk, responses were divided along gender lines, which was both alarming and revealing.
CG: Moving forward, I’d like to explore other forms of embodiment—not being stuck behind a screen. Text felt enriching and gave me a playful connection to the audience. Visual-physical synchronization was less impactful than I’d expected, and the physical risks outweighed the results. I’ll refine that in the future. I also want to explore the wind—the sensation on your face as you walk.
Most crucially, I will focus on the precision and friction between what happens internally and externally in waiting or walking moments.
EFA: Charlotte, what moved you the most about Margarida’s work?
CG: Her fascination and meticulous process. Her honesty in research and intimate collaboration with her performer. I’m curious about how she pushes her aesthetic further into otherness. For me the images are still accessible and comfortable; I’d love to see them become more abject and unsettling. Rip me open, I say!
EFA: Margarida, what moved you the most about Charlotte’s work?
MC: Charlotte’s line, “I remember these places and I’d like to think they remember me, too,” struck me. It reflects something I’m exploring: anthropomorphizing things and moving beyond human-centered narratives. Places, objects, and nature being alive, storing memory, and exerting independence fascinates me.
Charlotte’s performance felt intimate, like being in her room, sharing a vulnerable moment. It reminded me of navigating relationships in youth, the strange, formative spaces of exploring one’s sexuality. I’d love to know where her themes originate. How important are her memories? Is there something private yet to surface?
